The October 2022 issue of Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies has been released and offers five new articles covering a range of topics from the Middle Ages.
Personification and Gender Fluidity in the Psychomachia and Its Early Reception, by Katharine Breen
The fifth-century poem Psychomachia by Prudentius tells an allegorical battle between Vices and Virtues. While it proved to be a popular text in the Middle Ages, some modern observers have found its personifications of Virtues are poorly executed allegorical goddesses. Breen re-examines the text and some of its early medieval commentators to argue that the work’s “transgressions of gender norms were central to Prudentius’s poetic project and were generally understood and appreciated as such by the poem’s early readers.”
“It Will Help Him Wonderfully”: Placebo and Meaning Responses in Early Medieval English Medicine, by Rebecca Brackmann
When examining medieval medical writings, some people believe that the cures they described were just “mere placebo” and would not help him. However, the modern medical view of the placebo effect has been changing and showing us that this could have a lot of benefits for a patient. Brackmann looks at Old English texts covering medicine to see if the writers were seeking to create their own version of the placebo effect.
Roman Women: Female Religious, the Papacy, and a Growing Dominican Order, by Mary Harvey Doyno
Doyno’s article focuses on the growth of the Dominican Order in early-thirteenth-century Rome and how San Sisto, a dilapidated church, was remade into a universal convent for all Roman religious women. The author notes how this “dissection of one moment in Roman religious history also tells us something about the very nature of the female religious life, the institutional church in the Middle Ages, and those entities’ relationship to each other.”
Comparative Economy and Martial Corporatism: Toward an Understanding of Florentine City Leagues, 1332–92, by William Caferro
One feature of later medieval Italy was the alliances created by various city-states. Many of these leagues were created in the fourteenth century, and Caferro examines the archival records of these relationships to see what they can tell us about the military and economic strength of cities such as Florence, Siena, Pisa, Milan and others.
Word as Bond in an Age of Division: John Eugenikos as Orator, Partisan, and Poet, by Nathanael Aschenbrenner and Krystina Kubina
The authors examine the career of John Eugenikos (c. 1400–55), a Byzantine intellectual, theologian, and polemicist. As a Byzantine bureaucrat, Eugenikos was involved in various matters, but is best known as an opponent of the union of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. The article includes a translation of an epigram praising the Byzantine Emperor John VIII Palaiologos (1425-1448).
You can access the issue through the University of Chicago Press website.
This marks the last issue of 2022 for Speculum, which is produced by the Medieval Academy of America. Eighteen articles were published this year, including pieces on the Viking ritual of Blood Eagle and on depictions of slavery in Iberian art. Katherine L. Jansen, the editor of Speculum, looked back on the year and commented:
I’m very proud of all four issues of 2022 which, I think, really reflect the diversity of the field of medieval studies as it is practiced today. That is, we published articles that reflect some of the latest concerns of medievalists: interests in environmental studies, race and racial thinking, women and gender, religious conversion, and comparative work between western Europe and Asia, while also publishing work on more traditional subjects including the crusades, manuscript studies, and intellectual history. I am also delighted that our July issue was able to bring together some of the very innovative scholarship concentrated on medieval Iberia, which brought together work focusing on Jews, Muslims, and Christians, some of it in comparative contexts.
Click here to learn more about Speculum
The October 2022 issue of Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies has been released and offers five new articles covering a range of topics from the Middle Ages.
Personification and Gender Fluidity in the Psychomachia and Its Early Reception, by Katharine Breen
The fifth-century poem Psychomachia by Prudentius tells an allegorical battle between Vices and Virtues. While it proved to be a popular text in the Middle Ages, some modern observers have found its personifications of Virtues are poorly executed allegorical goddesses. Breen re-examines the text and some of its early medieval commentators to argue that the work’s “transgressions of gender norms were central to Prudentius’s poetic project and were generally understood and appreciated as such by the poem’s early readers.”
“It Will Help Him Wonderfully”: Placebo and Meaning Responses in Early Medieval English Medicine, by Rebecca Brackmann
When examining medieval medical writings, some people believe that the cures they described were just “mere placebo” and would not help him. However, the modern medical view of the placebo effect has been changing and showing us that this could have a lot of benefits for a patient. Brackmann looks at Old English texts covering medicine to see if the writers were seeking to create their own version of the placebo effect.
Roman Women: Female Religious, the Papacy, and a Growing Dominican Order, by Mary Harvey Doyno
Doyno’s article focuses on the growth of the Dominican Order in early-thirteenth-century Rome and how San Sisto, a dilapidated church, was remade into a universal convent for all Roman religious women. The author notes how this “dissection of one moment in Roman religious history also tells us something about the very nature of the female religious life, the institutional church in the Middle Ages, and those entities’ relationship to each other.”
Comparative Economy and Martial Corporatism: Toward an Understanding of Florentine City Leagues, 1332–92, by William Caferro
One feature of later medieval Italy was the alliances created by various city-states. Many of these leagues were created in the fourteenth century, and Caferro examines the archival records of these relationships to see what they can tell us about the military and economic strength of cities such as Florence, Siena, Pisa, Milan and others.
Word as Bond in an Age of Division: John Eugenikos as Orator, Partisan, and Poet, by Nathanael Aschenbrenner and Krystina Kubina
The authors examine the career of John Eugenikos (c. 1400–55), a Byzantine intellectual, theologian, and polemicist. As a Byzantine bureaucrat, Eugenikos was involved in various matters, but is best known as an opponent of the union of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. The article includes a translation of an epigram praising the Byzantine Emperor John VIII Palaiologos (1425-1448).
You can access the issue through the University of Chicago Press website.
This marks the last issue of 2022 for Speculum, which is produced by the Medieval Academy of America. Eighteen articles were published this year, including pieces on the Viking ritual of Blood Eagle and on depictions of slavery in Iberian art. Katherine L. Jansen, the editor of Speculum, looked back on the year and commented:
I’m very proud of all four issues of 2022 which, I think, really reflect the diversity of the field of medieval studies as it is practiced today. That is, we published articles that reflect some of the latest concerns of medievalists: interests in environmental studies, race and racial thinking, women and gender, religious conversion, and comparative work between western Europe and Asia, while also publishing work on more traditional subjects including the crusades, manuscript studies, and intellectual history. I am also delighted that our July issue was able to bring together some of the very innovative scholarship concentrated on medieval Iberia, which brought together work focusing on Jews, Muslims, and Christians, some of it in comparative contexts.
Click here to learn more about Speculum
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